I question very much, however, if the fishermen would agree to such a plan, as they always prefer ready money and no risk. Another suggestion is to unite the offices of _ecoreur_ and _mareyeur_ in one person, or even, as is already done in some quarters, to combine these two functions with the owner’s own special duties. Undoubtedly, a much more effectual plan than either of these is a reduction in the expenses of carriage and duties. The system of transport is manifestly defective, inasmuch as the rate is a uniform one for fine and ordinary fresh fish. The expenses of the carriage compel the fisherman in many cases to retain the ordinary or inferior qualities of fish and endeavour to make use of them otherwise than for sale by employing them for the food of their own households, feeding poultry, or manuring barren land. They in some instances cut off the superfluous parts of the monkfish—the tail, fins, etc.—to reduce the carriage weight; and although the fish thus mutilated fetch a less price than they would otherwise bring, the depreciation of the selling-price is more than counterbalanced by the reduction in the freight. It would be difficult to suggest a system which would at once meet the wishes of the owners of boats, the fish-merchants, and the railway directors. On the southern and western railway lines in Ireland the fish are divided into classes. Turbot, sole, plaice, whiting, eels, and shrimps, are charged two-thirds of the rate for salmon; oysters, crabs, and lobsters, one-half; and herring and the common fish one-third. In France, as I have already said, the rate is uniform. The cost of transport depends upon the distance alone. The Commercial Treaty has brought foreign fish more abundantly into the market; but those coming from England, being gutted to make them keep, have no longer the red gills by which the buyer distinguishes fresh fish; and between a gutted fish and one with the gills intact the purchaser never hesitates to choose the latter, without the slightest regard to the place at which it has been caught. The fish-carrier, again, tries, by cramming as many fish as possible into the large baskets, to diminish the number of packages, and thus destroys a number of his fish.